About Jason Thibeault

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

Furniture-based Tetris heresy

This is an interesting and attractive take on the idea of a sectional couch, in this design entitled Tat-ris. Looks rather comfy, too. Who wouldn’t want a Tetris-inspired living room theme, anyway?

I do have to take issue with it, however.

Something seem a bit off about the pieces? If you said “no”, get the hell off this blog. The answer should be obvious — the pieces are not all tetriminoes. The original game only ever had the seven tetrimino shapes, and while some heretical variants or ill-advised sequels have added special pieces like bombs, allowed for non-connected blocks, or included non-tetriminoes, any Tetris player worth their salt knows damn well you can’t call something “inspired by Tetris” when you take such a huge departure from the source material.

So who’s with me on boycotting the designers? Or more importantly, who’s against me… SO I CAN IP-BLOCK BAN YOUR SORRY ASSES?

Hat tip to Our Lady, bringing us all this little piece of fail despite being the patron saint of internet win.

Like this:

Related

About the author

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

This designer obviously was playing an eastern European version of the game known as pentris.
I think Jason is being a numero-elitist jackass.
I don’t think that this couch is a little bit better than tetris, I in fact think in many cases it is one better.

Point proven Mr.Thibeault. That white T piece shows that this couch is in fact 50% better than a tetris couch.
Four may be a sacred number, but this couch is obviously a reformation, think of it as the “four plus more” reformation. A succinct refutation of the dogma and hegemony of the false prophet Pajitnov.
When you limit yourself to the “Tetrateuch” you limit yourself to the love of a single integer. You become an integerist. I, for one, will not be party to your ham-fisted integerism.
You only want to have debates with those that agree with you. This is evidenced by your threat to block my IP. Before you start, I know that a debate between agreeing parties is nonsensical and idiotic. And that’s exactly what you are for insisting upon it.

George, the funny thing about Jesus in America and “special underwear” is that there are millions of people who believe those exact things. Of course, I’m not one of those people. Nor do I truly believe that Dr. Mario is superior to Tetris. Instead, I was merely enjoying a little bit of nerd trolling (I believe the youths refer to it as “for the lulz”). I also take immense pleasure in extolling the virtues of Windows on Mac forums and burning down orphanages, since neither Apple fanboys nor orphans have the physical or mental capacity to defend themselves. But that doesn’t actually mean I love Microsoft or Zippo lighters – it just means I’m a jerk!
As it stands, I fear no Turbographix 16 games, for I did indeed attempt to play Alf: the Video Game on a 286 with a Hercules graphics emulator back in 1988. Previous to that torture, I had been instructed to waste a portion of my youth assisting the near-blind, elderly aunt of a close family friend play Zork. Granted, I don’t think the Zork gameplay lasted longer than thirteen minutes, but the damage had already been done. That was the summer my childhood died.
And yeah, Jason, ET for the 2600 was the reason I cut myself when I’m depressed.

Sinned: Dr. Mario is better than Tetris?
Why, that’s like saying Jesus came to America, or I need to wear underwear whilst having nookie.
Go find some backwater of our country and keep Dr. Mario to yourself.
Jason: Can I also nominate Home Alone for the SuperNes as a second circle of “ET-for-the-Atari-2600”? I would also accept Drakkhen for SNES, or just about any game on TurboGraphix 16.

Jason: Much like turducken, it’s trolling within trolling. I can’t tell if that makes me a trolling genius, or just a below average astrologer (err, I mean “trolling idiot”). My excuse is that I’m at work, and my brain is fried from trying to wrap my head around our stupid frigging Java-based front-end tracking system. Intelligent posting by me is going to be even less likely than usual right now.

George: Actually, the irony didn’t cross my mind – I was just using the opportunity to insult Apple lovers. Ever since my awesome memories of the Apple IIe were tainted by the horrors of the Mac Classic, I feel it’s my duty to diss Apple whenever possible.

Plus: Alf was only made better with the Hercules graphics emulation. Nothing better than software that emulates hardware, especially at an incredible 2 frames per second! In my memory, Alf had chemtrails!

Okay, you nerds. At a friend’s house, when I was in grade school, I played Amiga games now and then. Played through the first Quest for Glory there (and it was actually called Hero’s Quest at the time, before the board game manufacturer sued Sierra). There were a few pretty good games I enjoyed quite a bit, but there was this one strange little platform game that I never managed to get very far in.

Here’s the only details I can recall. I believe the left or right 1/3 of the screen was used for an inventory or status system. There were multiple characters you could choose from, but the only difference between any of them, to the best of my knowledge, was that the Asian guy, when he jumped, did a cool jump kick. One of them had a pith helmet, too. There were no actual attacks, per se, it was sort of a 2D platform adventure game where you had to collect items and use them to be able to advance through the world. Lots of backtracking, screen-based “scrolling”, many environmental hazards that you had to avoid, and one particular scene (which may have been the starting screen) where there was a broken bridge. All the characters were super-deformed with big heads, and the graphics were very bright and vibrant.

I found a list of Amiga platform games here, but I can’t find it on there. I haven’t looked at every single one, but none of the names seem familiar, and none of the ones I looked at are even remotely close.

Yeah, you’re right. I was conflating my memory of Cosmic Relief with Time Bandit, another game I had played there regularly. Sigh. Still though, I got it right. And with an emulator, I can finally beat the bloody thing once and for all.

Jason, where’s the inventory?
ON THE BOTTOM. Jackass.
I admit to never having or playing an Amiga. I do know of it as somewhat legendary though.
I used an Amiga 2000 for video editing when I worked at the local cable station, and our resident techie would ramble on about it for hours.
I was an Intellivision/Tandy Extended Color Basic/Nes/SNES/N64 kid, although I bought an Atari about 10 years ago for nostalgia. It was new! Still in it’s box, with 20 games that were all still shrinkwrapped. I got it from a computer store in town that had it sitting in their storage room.

You’ve just reminded me of my yearly “Beat A Game Which You Could Not Beat As A Kid” pilgrimmage. It’s about that time! So far:
Strider (NES)
Castlevania II (NES)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past (SNES)

Suggestions for this year? Anyone with me? We’re talking major catharsis here!

I beat Castlevania 2 and Zelda 3 legit, but Strider required the use of a Game Genie. Some of the stages are just absolutely brutal. It being the first retraversal game that I had played involving getting items to unlock more areas, though, I fell in love with it. (Yeah, seriously, at that point I had never played Metroid.)

Castlevania 2 was just goddamn cryptic sometimes… it seems to me I had to use Nintendo Power magazines to figure out what to do. Drop a garlic clove in a graveyard, to receive a gem from a random stranger? Duck next to a wall with a crystal equipped to summon a whirlwind? Eff that noise. The in-game hints never said ANYTHING about any of that. Probably due to mistranslation issues, mind you, but still. It was impossible for someone to beat without someone telling you what to do. Ah well… at least Dracula was easy. Holy water basically pinned him to the altar where he appeared.

Yeah, the wall jump in Strider is atrociously hard to get used to but conceptually cool. Made my decision for this year: Super Metroid. Realized I have never beaten a Metroid game. Looks like this year may take longer.

That’s a great idea! I can think of lots of games I’d like to go back to beat:

Maniac Mansion (NES) – I did beat it, but only once – I’d like to see a few more of the endings.
X-Com (PC) – I beat it with cheats. I remember it being insanely hard, but awesome.
Eye Of The Beholder II (PC)
Pool Of Radiance (PC)
Wolfenstein 3-D (PC) – I didn’t have a PC that could run this at the time. Played it at friends’ houses.
Populous (PC)
Bandit Kings Of Ancient China (NES)
River City Ransom (NES) – I wish I’d bought this game at the time.
AD&D: Treasure Of Tarmin (Intellivision)
Wonder Boy In Monster Land (Arcade) – Going to need MAME for this one!
Bubble Bobble (Arcade)
Starflight (Genesis)

Comments are closed.

The Orbit is a diverse collective of atheist and nonreligious bloggers committed to social justice, within and outside the secular community. For more information, please see our About Us page.

All content is copyright the authors except where otherwise noted. Contact the authors individually for further information.